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Optimistic Pricing
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135 posts in this topic

3 hours ago, vodou said:

Perhaps not expected but no doubt can be found. I do exactly that at least five times a year. So no, I'm not tripping over those opportunities daily but every other month or so - in that exact price range, I see true genius and snap it up faster than you can type WTF?! :)

This is the optimistic pricing thread...$300 for that atrocity Arak is very much optimistic for any collector with taste. Fanboys will blindly buy such 'things' up, of course, because...at least it's not from Star Comics or something, right?

A moment regarding $300 here...the current Federal minimum wage is $7.25/hr. Forget that you're an attorney that makes far above median/medium income nationally or for your state (NJ) and certainly nowhere close to minimum wage, and put yourself in the shoes of the burger flipper. Pre-tax...$300 = just over 41 hours of work. That's pre-tax. Would you put in that many hours to "earn" this art? Then why would anyone else? So either it's a rich man's game (attorney, MDs, and the like) or...it's an overpriced POS lol

The only reason anybody even looks twice at it, at that price (or really "any price") is because everything else has been run up so much. That alone does not justify a purchase of garbage at a (any) price though. Junk is junk, this was a $5 page 25 years ago (when 2X Silver Kirby solid superhero material was $1500) and still should be today...for the intrinsic value of the paper it was drawn on, that can likely be turned over and used again...but no more than that.

I am sorry you don’t like the artwork in the Arak piece, but I do. I have seen other work sell for much more that, which to me, is incomprehensible. And, if you were a burger flipper, no you should not buy it. You would probably have a hard time buying burgers on that level of income. That is a sad reality of the situation. And yes, a lot of art seems overpriced to me these days. I still remember seeing Dillin pages in the $5.00 bin—and leaving them there. But price is supposed to be a function of demand, and nostalgia has kicked up prices on journeyman’s work.
But as you pointed out, that is not the point of this thread. Can someone justify that Spaghetti Western Art for $22,000? Are there comp’s which have sold like that? Is there an outbreak in Europe for Americana which has not been reported? I would love to know. I still think it has a typo in the pricing.

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Apples and oranges because 2 different artists, and so a terrible comparison, but here's one from Jean Giraud of the same character that sold at auction at Heritage last year...

Again, different artist, so not a great comparison on that front. Same character/theme (that you seem to have a beef with) selling just a few months ago for 40K. There's another one in an auction after that for over $35K.
Now, I don't for a second think this new guy is JG. Just indicating that Blueberry is way more popular as a character than you seem to want to give credit for.

 

https://comics.ha.com/itm/original-comic-art/jean-giraud-blueberry-tome-planche-6-dargaud-1971-/a/7208-91093.s?ic16=ViewItem-BrowseTabs-Auction-Archive-ArchiveSearchResults-012417&lotPosition=0|1

And just since I want to put a finer point on it, according to Wikipedia, the book for the 22K page is a new one, so who knows how that will be received long term. Only time will ever tell on that front.

Here's the history of Blueberry for you if you are genuinely interested and didn't know this has been a big ongoing thing since the 60s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blueberry_(comics)

Edited by ESeffinga
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5 hours ago, ESeffinga said:

Comics is littered with dudes reaching high. Go back and read my responses in that Jim Lee thread about the commission prices from Lake Como.  OA collectors ask artists to shut up when they talk about wanting a percentage of future sales as their work increases in price over time. But we also don't want to pay them a premium when they are trying to sell their work today? That's trying to have it both ways, IMO.

 

I mean, artists can ask. But they too are trying to have it both ways if they want to sell the art for one price now and get a cut of profits from future resales. Whoever bears the risk of trading liquidity for art will also reap the future rewards of appreciated value, if any. There are certainly creators holding on to some or most of their work anticipating a future bonanza, and that's their right.

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5 hours ago, ESeffinga said:

Apples and oranges because 2 different artists, and so a terrible comparison, but here's one from Jean Giraud of the same character that sold at auction at Heritage last year...

Again, different artist, so not a great comparison on that front. Same character/theme (that you seem to have a beef with) selling just a few months ago for 40K. There's another one in an auction after that for over $35K.
Now, I don't for a second think this new guy is JG. Just indicating that Blueberry is way more popular as a character than you seem to want to give credit for.

 

https://comics.ha.com/itm/original-comic-art/jean-giraud-blueberry-tome-planche-6-dargaud-1971-/a/7208-91093.s?ic16=ViewItem-BrowseTabs-Auction-Archive-ArchiveSearchResults-012417&lotPosition=0|1

And just since I want to put a finer point on it, according to Wikipedia, the book for the 22K page is a new one, so who knows how that will be received long term. Only time will ever tell on that front.

Here's the history of Blueberry for you if you are genuinely interested and didn't know this has been a big ongoing thing since the 60s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blueberry_(comics)

I don’t have a beef with the artist, and was going to respond to your earlier comment, but for my purpose, this will do.

The point of this thread is supposed to be whether or not an offered price represents fair market value or not. It might be based on auction prices, private sales, or personal knowledge.  In my case, I mostly work off listed sales on Heritage, things I follow, and bits from CAT or CAF, so my knowledge base is limited. Others on this board have way more knowledge than I do. Learning if a price is reasonable is valuable to people who like something they see, but are scratching their head about why it seems so high. It can also be just generic fun, like the stones which are regularly thrown at the Brothers’ pricing (as well as their other shenanigans). If you think a piece is about 25% higher than market, or 100% higher than market, or at or below market, please share.

 I would never consider Jim Lee’s pricing of commission work on this thread to be an appropriate subject. People readily pay it, so it is at market price. On the other thread, I think the question was more like “why is it so high?” To me, it isn’t worth it even if that is the market price.

 I have paid more than FMV if there is something I like because I will want to keep looking at it. And if someone gave me $22,000, and told me I can buy the Arak piece and pocket the difference, or the Spaghetti Western piece, I would spend the $300 and keep the remaining $21,700. But, that isn’t the point of this thread. 

And by the way, I do value your opinions, whether I agree with them or not, and have also been known to change my opinions. I value the people here, as well as their views, and would not want anyone to think otherwise.

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Regarding the Blueberry page. 

The French market value pages way more than the comics market, partly because of the slower rythm of production (hence pages are a scarce commodity), partly because we love "art".

Moreover Blain is something of a superstar of the french comic book industry.

The price may be optimistic, but not that much ...

 

 

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46 minutes ago, Mycroft said:

Blain is something of a superstar

Thank you. Finally a European tells us how Europe (or at least France) views the guy. Can you give us a correlation to something we know? Is he "like" Jack Kirby or "like" Jim Lee or "like"...?

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1 hour ago, Mycroft said:

Regarding the Blueberry page. 

The French market value pages way more than the comics market, partly because of the slower rythm of production (hence pages are a scarce commodity), partly because we love "art".

Moreover Blain is something of a superstar of the french comic book industry.

The price may be optimistic, but not that much ...

 

 

Do you find that French collectors are mostly interested in French/European artists, or are they equally interested in comic art from America and other countries outside of Europe?

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14 minutes ago, vodou said:

Thank you. Finally a European tells us how Europe (or at least France) views the guy. Can you give us a correlation to something we know? Is he "like" Jack Kirby or "like" Jim Lee or "like"...?

Thats hard ...

Let's say one of his book (Quai d'Orsay) had a movie adaptation and he is one of the few two-time winners of the Angoulême International Comics Festival Prize for Best Album.

I would say he some kind of Scott Murphy, for lack of better correlations.

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11 minutes ago, NewCollector101 said:

Do you find that French collectors are mostly interested in French/European artists, or are they equally interested in comic art from America and other countries outside of Europe?

I, for one, am more interested in US comics, notably because of prices.

But the french collectors (excluding the few US comics fans) are more interested in the artists published by the french publishers, with exceptions for some very well known US artists and those that are considered like "real artists" : Kirby, Mignola, Murphy, Ware ...

Edited by Mycroft
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You can have a look at the french market at 2Dgalleries https://www.2dgalleries.com/ 

or the BDGest forum dedicated to original art https://www.bdgest.com/forum/originaux.html

and his US comics dedicated thread https://www.bdgest.com/forum/avez-vous-des-planches-originales-de-comics-t16995-3960.html

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46 minutes ago, Mycroft said:

You can have a look at the french market at 2Dgalleries https://www.2dgalleries.com/ 

or the BDGest forum dedicated to original art https://www.bdgest.com/forum/originaux.html

and his US comics dedicated thread https://www.bdgest.com/forum/avez-vous-des-planches-originales-de-comics-t16995-3960.html

I saw a link to your blog in that thread, I love it!

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3 hours ago, Mycroft said:

Regarding the Blueberry page. 

The French market value pages way more than the comics market, partly because of the slower rythm of production (hence pages are a scarce commodity), partly because we love "art".

Moreover Blain is something of a superstar of the french comic book industry.

The price may be optimistic, but not that much ...

 

 

Wow. Thank you.
He just released a large number of pages. If he gets them all sold at those prices, he must live very well. Are there a lot of people buying art like this? How do people afford it? It seems like a very different world. 👂

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10 minutes ago, Rick2you2 said:

Wow. Thank you.
He just released a large number of pages. If he gets them all sold at those prices, he must live very well. Are there a lot of people buying art like this? How do people afford it? It seems like a very different world. 👂

I had a feeling there was some justification, glad we figured that out. Not everything is 20,000 EUR either, this is just as nice (imo) as the original example and it's only 8,000 EUR. Now that's still a lot of money (duh), but the market for nice images is available at various price points. Of course I don't know anything about which stories/characters/etc are more desirable here, so that may be the difference between one and the other being 2.5x more expensive.

image.png.5ede3abea8dbf6e4f09fb2266bd35e99.png

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19 minutes ago, Rick2you2 said:

Wow. Thank you.
He just released a large number of pages. If he gets them all sold at those prices, he must live very well. Are there a lot of people buying art like this? How do people afford it? It seems like a very different world. 👂

I don't know if he will sell all the pages ... Even in our market, his prices are considered (too) high.

The people who can afford it are the same that can afford Kirby, McFarlane, Ditko, ... the 1 % :)

Edited by Mycroft
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21 minutes ago, vodou said:

I had a feeling there was some justification, glad we figured that out. Not everything is 20,000 EUR either, this is just as nice (imo) as the original example and it's only 8,000 EUR. Now that's still a lot of money (duh), but the market for nice images is available at various price points. Of course I don't know anything about which stories/characters/etc are more desirable here, so that may be the difference between one and the other being 2.5x more expensive.

image.png.5ede3abea8dbf6e4f09fb2266bd35e99.png

I confess surprise that there was justification for it. In the prior week, there were two instances in which Tony Daniels had made a similar typgraphic on pricing in CAT. My guess was that since different countries place comma's and periods in different places when writing euro's, it had something to do with that. 

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23 minutes ago, Mycroft said:

I don't know if he will sell all the pages ... Even in our market, his prices are considered (too) high.

The people who can afford it are the same that can afford Kirby, McFarlane, Ditko, ... the 1 % :)

Could you give me a range about how optimistic his prices seem for the book, given what actually sells? 

What about work from different book series? As you must know, that can have a major impact on pricing.

Still and all, it's a fascinating look at the European market--very different than ours, I see.

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12 minutes ago, Rick2you2 said:

My guess was that since different countries place comma's and periods in different places when writing euro's, it had something to do with that. 

That's true, the European convention for the price of a large soda would be 1,99 not 1.99.

4 minutes ago, Rick2you2 said:

Still and all, it's a fascinating look at the European market--very different than ours, I see.

Maybe, but I can also tell you that the art of sequential storytelling in that 8,000 example I just posted is on par with Will Eisner. With that in mind, aside from not being 'vintage' and deceased....that would be a comparable right there. Not to beat a dead horse but it's no knocked out for a paycheck Infantino Arak. I'll take one of mine for 27 of yours ;)

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